


All I Need is the Air

by beir, tisfan



Series: Imagine Tony and Bucky 2018 [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (Not the sexy kind), Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Wings, Blood and Gore, Choking, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Slavery, Torture, Wingfic, aerial sex, background Steve/Nat/Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-12 08:50:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13543878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beir/pseuds/beir, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: There are two kinds of problems in the world: The sort that can be fixed, and the sort that can’t. When Winter, an ex-slave who can’t fly because of a torn wing and a ruined heart, is delivered to Tony Stark, he is a mix of both kinds of problems. Tony might be able to make a new wing for the poor avian, but can he cure a broken heart and bring peace to a former slave who no longer remembers who, or what, he is?





	1. Cover

**Author's Note:**

> This fic involves some torture, slavery, recovering Bucky, and a very ableist society who have been known to kill off members who can't fly out of some misguided idea about mercy. This is a subject that bothers Bucky (and Tony) quite a lot, but it is expounded upon at length, so if that's triggering for you, please exercise caution. 
> 
> I want to take a minute to thank Beir for collaborating with me and doing such gorgeous artwork (especially when Bruce and I had an argument about what sort of creature he was...)


	2. Cover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're sensitive about Tony being choked, that happens, but it's near the end of the first chapter and doesn't last for very long.

By the time the Azzano mines were liberated, Winter had forgotten how to care. He waited, sitting near one of the mine carts, for one of the invading soldiers to take him away, or for one of his masters to come and claim him. He was weary and his chest hurt. Sitting was nice. He didn’t get much of a chance to sit during waking hours. He didn’t look, keeping his arms wrapped around his calves, fingers absently picking at the ventral scales along the back of his legs.

From the main branches of the tunnels, there was fighting. Some of Winter’s fellows had joined the fray, screaming, brandishing their tools as weapons.

Winter didn’t bother.

If he did nothing, he might be rewarded; given extra feed. Or even nesting material. It wasn’t beyond reasonable expectation.

If the masters found him rebelling, he would be captured, perhaps killed, or transported to a different mine.

If the invaders found him, well, then it would be worse.

Winter was _grounded_.

He shivered, keeping his wing furled tight against his back. His rectrices -- tail feathers -- were mangled. That was standard procedure to keep an avian enslaved, and while painful, nothing that wouldn’t fix itself if he were left alone for a week or two to grow new ones.

But Winter was missing a _wing_.

Avians were bird-men; half man, half bird. But Winter was only half of a half bird, and, after so long in slavery, no man at all.

The invaders would kill him.

They would say it was a _mercy_. That he could pass on to the next egg, that the Skylords would pass judgement on him. They would say it was _practical_. An avian who couldn’t fly would never be able to contribute to society. They would say it was _for the best_. Living, he would be outcast. Useless. Utterly dependent on charity.

Hydra, the tribe of nagas who had captured him more than a decade ago, forced him to work, cut his rectrices, chopped off his wing, for sky’s sweet sake, they wouldn’t pretend that what they were doing was a kindness. If they killed him, they’d at least bemoan the loss of the _property_.

They were evil, and Winter knew they were evil.

But the invaders, his own kin, they would kill him, cut his throat to spare themselves the trouble. And they’d never think twice of it. He’d be unmarked and unmourned and forgotten.

Winter couldn’t decide if he longed for death, or if he still feared it.

He knew he feared pain. At least he could count on the avians, whatever flock it was, to give him a swift death. They wouldn’t want him to _suffer_ , of course.

The fighting moved closer; the sibilant sound of scales on stone growing louder. Winter pushed himself as far back against the wall as was possible.

The naga was fleeing, tail slithering across the floor, half its weight dragging as if it were injured. The stink of ichor filled Winter’s nostrils. Winter flexed his feet, his talons clicking. It wouldn’t take much, if the Hydra was already wounded; alone, not paying attention to what was in front of it, too worried about what was behind it.

It was a bad thought, and Winter was bad for thinking it. But if the Hydra really were fleeing? He had next to no chance to live, and maybe, he could have some satisfaction. Something to present to the Skyfathers and say “I tried.” He could die free. That would be worth the death.

It wasn’t until the naga got closer that Winter knew it enough to identify one snake from the whole pit. _Rumlow_. Winter’s hands flexed, his remaining wing shivered. Rumlow had wielded the blade--

_\--burning pain as his pinions are grabbed, stretched. Near coming out at the shaft. He tries to pull away, yanking with all his strength, but he was held too firm. Struggling was futile, and yet he can’t help but struggle. The light reflects off the blade, and he’s being taunted, but he doesn’t care what they say, all he can do is focus on that terrible knife._

_Rumlow is talking, quiet and calm and dark. Derisive in his ear. “Order comes from pain,” he says, and then there_ is _pain._

_More pain than he thought could ever exist in the world. His wing! The bone is snapped, wrenched as the tendons are severed, the feathers yanked and pulled and tossed to the ground. Blood pours down his back, wet and hot and sticky and he is screaming--_

Winter used the wall to push himself up. Rumlow slithered closer and Winter waited, just long enough. He wanted Rumlow to know; if Winter did nothing else with his dying breath, he wanted Rumlow to know that it was vengeance and not just bad luck. One hand on the wall, one hand on the mine-cart, and Winter shoved himself up, just as Rumlow crossed in front of him.

A flash of talons and Winter had the naga pinned, tail and throat, to the dirty tunnel floor.

Rumlow flailed; his heavy snake’s body writhing and wriggling. Winter was lighter; bones meant for flying couldn’t support the weight of muscle that the nagas had. The naga struggled, landing hard, heavy blows against Winter’s legs, yanking at his mangled tail feathers. Winter ignored the pain. It would be over soon. He squeezed, flexed his talons with every bit of strength he had left.

Rumlow uttered a strangled scream as Winter crushed the naga’s windpipe.

Winter was still standing on Rumlow when an avian burst into the side tunnel. Winter staggered backward until he hit the wall, wanting to cower, wanting to cringe, to abase himself. He knew he’d done wrong, he waited for the blows to land and--

“Bucky?”

Winter raised his head; the avian across from him was tall, wings proud and mantled, with pale hair and blue eyes and a strong jaw. He carried a shield on one arm, impressed with a star.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” It had been a long time since Winter heard his own voice, he scarcely  recognized it.

“Hey,” the avian said, spreading his hands to hold, to capture, and Winter pushed himself back against the wall and started inching sideways, away. “Hey, it’s okay, you know me, pal.”

“No, I don’t,” Winter protested, shaking his head. He wished he had both his wings, he wanted to hide under the comfort of feathers, wanted--

“Steve, man, where you at?” A second avian burst into the tunnel, brilliantly red-plumaged wings spread wide. He had a cut on the side of his face, blood as red as his wings. “Ain’t you catch that --oh. Hey, hey there.”

“Sam,” Steve said. “Look, it’s Bucky.”

The name was familiar. _Do I know him?_ Winter shook the intrusive thought away, it didn’t matter who it was. Did he even dare to remember?

“I don’t know you!” Winter yelled.

“I’m your friend,” Steve insisted. “You’ve known me your whole life.”

 _His whole life._ Winter’s whole life had been in the dark, like a worm, wingless, in pain. Working. He knew the stories of what avians did to their own who were grounded. Flightless. _Useless_. They all knew.

“This is my life,” Winter said, flat, emotionless on the outside and screaming on the inside. His life, with heavy bracelets locked around his ankles, too heavy to let him fly, even if he could have flown. His tail feathers crushed and aching. His wings… his beautiful wings, once rich, dark brown, now gray from pain and loss. _This is all the life I have._

“Well, it doesn’t have to be, pal,” Steve said. Gently. “Come on, come with us.”

Winter nodded, slow. It was over anyway. He couldn’t bring himself to take the offered hand; kept his wing furled, tried to keep the stump of his missing wing hidden behind his shoulder. He whined, deep in his throat, an anguished trill, fingers pushing at the air until they took the hint and walked in front so they couldn’t see his mangled body.

“It’s okay, man,” the other -- Sam? -- said. “We’ll take care of you.”

***

Even under the best of circumstances, it made Steve uncomfortable to cross over the firebreak. Stark lived in what had once been a broad, fat yew, but was now a monument to Stark’s unfathomable passion.

Everyone said the reason he lived there was because it was safer for the flock if his nest was on the other side of the firebreak. Stark worked with fire; he’d constructed a huge forge inside his iron tree and it burned constantly. He melted and twisted metal. Smithing, he called it.

Steve didn’t know much about it, save that the risk to the forest was great and that he was grateful that Stark kept himself separate from the rest of the flock, rather than risk all their lives.

That said, flying out in the open, where there were no trees to conceal him or Sam, or their strange burden, made Steve nervous. He kept swiveling his neck to look above them, expecting to see a shadow at any moment.

At last, however, they circled. Gingerly lowered their burden and touched down.

The strange metal sheets that made up the landing platform felt weird under Steve’s feet, talons clicking loudly against the floor.

“Stark!”

A small form, bright blue, with wings that moved so fast Steve could barely see them, darted out of the opening in the side of the tree’s great trunk. A hummingbird, no longer than Steve’s finger, hovered in front of him. “Mr. Stark will be with you in a moment, Captain Rogers.”

Steve shook his head, furled his wings against his back. Only Stark would have befriended one of the pure aves, and then put it to work as a doorbird. Strange creature, Stark. His father had been an asset to the flock, a weaponcrafter of talent, but this Stark had put weaponry behind him. No one quite knew what to do with (or about) Tony Stark.

“Thanks, J,” Stark said. He strode out on the platform, wiping greasy hands on a scrap of fabric, leaving dark smudges. “Captain. How might I be of assistance? And you’ve brought me a present, how thoughtful.” He eyed the wooden contraption that Steve and Sam had rigged up.

“It’s not a present,” Steve said bitterly. “We didn’t know how else--”

But Stark wasn’t listening to Steve. He’d ripped the wooden hatch off and was peering inside. “What the hell?” There was something ugly in his voice, and with a shudder of feathers, Stark was airborne, talons flashing.

The poles and their leather ties fell away.

Bucky cowered on what had been the bottom of a carry-cage, his single wing sheltering his scarred back, one hand over his face. He hissed, tucking his head down as much as possible, crying out.

“It’s too bright for him,” Steve explained, grabbing some of the leather that had covered the cage. “He’s been underground for decades.” He shook the leather out and draped it over Bucky’s head, giving him some shade. Bucky calmed a little. A very little.

The look Stark gave him was dark and angry. “You put him in a cage?”

“I couldn’t just leave him there!” Steve protested. “And he can’t fly.”

Stark was already kneeling, one hand on the cool metal floor, close to Bucky but not touching. “It’s okay,” he was saying, softly, soothingly. “It’s all right.” He glanced up at Steve. “What do you want me to do?”

“I thought--” Steve trailed off.

“You thought?”

“I thought maybe you could help him,” Steve said. He shrugged.

“You want the other Stark. If you think I’m going to get my hands bloody because you’re--”

“No, Skies, _no_ ,” Steve protested. “Help him. If you can. Please? I don’t know anyone else to ask, everyone else thinks the same, that he’s grounded.”

Stark gave him a sharp look, then nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Go home. I’ll send J to you, if I need anything.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Stark said. “I haven’t done anything.”

Steve clasped Stark’s hand, the fingers rough and calloused, ridged with burns and nicks. “You’re willing to try. That’s more than I’d get from any of the rest.”

Stark nodded once, then made shooing gestures until Sam backed up and was airborne in seconds.

“I’ll be back,” Steve promised Bucky, and then, he too, leapt into the air and sped back toward the forest.

***

Tony didn’t bother to watch them fly off. He dropped onto his haunches, wrapping his arms around his lower legs to peer in.

A cage! How fucking _dare_ they! Bring someone to his nest in a skydamned _cage_. Tony wanted to regurgitate his lunch. There were other ways to transport someone who couldn’t fly. Traditionalists. Bah.

He was going to burn every scrap of that storm-rotted assembly the instant he coaxed its previous inhabitant away from the remains. He was going to tear it to pieces, if he had to do it with his _teeth_. He didn’t even want to reuse any part of it. “Hey there,” he said, gently.

The avian within, a too-thin, molt-feathered creature, cringed and cowered, nearly flat to the landing platform, heedless of the sharp edges and splinters surrounding him, arms going up to protect his head.

“I won’t hurt you,” Tony said, easily enough. Hard to keep his voice from shaking, as furious as he was. Look what they’d done to the poor thing, worse even than what had been done to him. “You can come out, come into my nest, I’m going to take care of you for a while.”

Jarvis, who was much stronger than he looked, darted forward, a satchel in his tiny talons. Dropped it on Tony’s head, which was the doorbird’s way of telling Tony he was being an idiot. God, Tony loved J. Tony opened the satchel, one of the many he kept well-stocked with seed cakes for his resource-gathering trips. Cracked flour, oats, various seeds, mixed together with flaxoil and grilled into flat cakes. Accompanied by a small blown glass jar of fruit paste, smeared on top made for a filling and tasty meal, easily portable. Tony prepped one and sat it on the edge of the cage.

“Come on, have something to eat, at least,” Tony crooned. He backed away, not wanting to scare the avian.

It took Tony the better part of two hours and his entire stack of seedcakes to tempt the other avian into his nest, but once he was under the cover of Tony’s tree and away from the sky, he seemed to relax, a little.

“So, uh, is that enough food for you, or are you--”

Tony didn’t get another word around because the avian sprang at him, the one wing fluttering limply, drooping pathetically. A vise-grip encircled Tony’s throat, cutting off his air, pushing him onto the floor with the emaciated man straddling him. “I didn’t come here to die, you’re not going to kill me.”

Tony’s feet pushed at the floor, talons opening and closing spasmodically. His tail feathers were getting crushed, pinions screaming in heated pain as the quills bent and shivered under repeated blows. Tony got his hands up on the man’s wrists. “I’m not planning to hurt anyone,” he managed to grate out. “Not--” He wheezed for air as the avian backed off, letting him breathe.

“They always say that,” the avian said. “And they always do. Slaves talk, slaves know. I’m _grounded_. I’m _worthless_.”

“You’re _crippled_ ,” Tony agreed, putting his hand to his bruised throat. He shoved himself up until he got his wings folded properly. “That doesn’t make you worthless.”  His hand slid lower, to his chest, feeling the solid, comforting weight of the arc-reactor that kept him alive.

The avian got to his feet, the manacles around his lower legs clanking unpleasantly. “So, I can just… go?”

Tony shrugged. “If you want to, you’re welcome to leave. I won’t hold you here. If… if you can trust me for a few minutes, though, I can do something about those shackles. You’ll be safer if you can run, even if you can’t fly right now.”

The pain in the avian’s eyes was staggering. “I’ll never fly again.”

“Never say never, cupcake,” Tony said. He winked, sly and smug. “What’s your name, anyway? I’m Tony. Tony Stark.”

“Winter.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OMG, look at this!! thanks to [kamaete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamaete/pseuds/Kamaete) for this pretty pretty piece of art.


	4. Chapter 4

 

Winter might die, but at least he wasn’t going to die hungry. And he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Tony led him down in his nest, an elaborately hollowed tree with a half dozen interior flets, all the way down until the floor under Winter’s talons was dirt. He couldn’t resist the urge to tear at the floor, to feel the earth crumbling under his feet.

Tony gave him a quick grin. “Need to scratch, a bit? Feel free, but there’s not much to forage down here. We can go out later, if you want. I remember how bad I needed to get my talons in the earth, back… well, I’ll tell you about that later, maybe. Let’s get those off you, okay?”

Winter hadn’t noticed the room, really. Hadn’t noticed the heat and the black and the red light thrown up on the walls. He didn’t know what it was; he’d never seen anything like it.

 _Fire_.

He knew fire. Every avian knew fire and feared it, but here, Tony kept it like a pet, contained inside walls that glinted and glittered and shone dark red in places.

“What is this?”

“Welcome to my evil lair,” Tony said, grinning. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Tony pulled out devices the likes of which Winter had never seen before and, after some coaxing, Winter put his leg up on a cold, oddly shaped, strange-smooth rock. Tony raised the tool and brought it down on a frozen gray stick and there was a ringing clang. After a few good hits, the shackle fell away.

Winter only vaguely remembered fire being involved, when the Hydra put the thrice-damned thing on him in the first place, being terrified and in pain, they’d wrapped it around his leg and seared it into place.

“What…”

“Metal,” Tony said. “Rocks with special properties. They become liquid under intense heat, and I can shape and change them to my needs.”

Winter blinked owlishly. “You do… this?” The Hydra in the mines had sometimes called the rocks that Winter and the other slaves scratched out of the rock “metal.” A dreadful suspicion rose in Winter’s heart. “Where do you get it?”

“I trade for it. Blacksmithing -- that’s what metalworking is called -- for raw stone. It’s dug up from the earth.”

“You… you did this to me?”

“What?”

“Hydra,” Winter spat. “Hydra plucked me from my nest, put these… _things_ on me--” he gestured violently at the broken shackle “-- forced us to work in their mines, for ore. Or we didn’t eat. And they… they tore off my wing and _you did this to us_?”

“No,” Tony whispered. He looked so stricken, so horrified, that Winter was convinced he meant it. Or didn’t know. “No, no, I wouldn’t…” his voice dropped. “I don’t know. If… if that’s what’s happened, what’s happening. I… I’ll find out. I’ll fix it, I swear, I… I just trade, _I didn’t know_. I didn’t know. I’ll make it right.”

“Yeah?” Winter grabbed Tony’s chin and stared into those brown eyes, so remorseful. “You’ll take me with you when you do.”

“Yeah, you got it, sunshine,” Tony said.

 

 

***

There were two kinds of problems in the world, Tony thought. The ones he could solve and the ones he could not solve. It was usually a matter of figuring out which ones were which, and then he could do what he did best. Ignore the things he didn’t know how to fix and work on the ones that he could.

He sent messengers -- Friday and Wasp and Marvel -- out. There were people he needed to speak with and materials that he needed. And information. He needed information more than anything else.

The forge glowed red for most of four days. He went through at least half of his remaining paper supply, designing, reworking, and configuring. He spent six precious hours working up a test-model from thin-carved wood. It would work, he thought. If the design held. If he could fix the controls. If he could lighten the power source a little.

He’d almost forgotten that he’d sent Marvel out to see if Bruce could spare some time for a consultation.

Tony had been trying to avoid Winter, which was harder to do than he might have guessed, but he didn’t usually have other people in his living space for long. He’d come across the other avian a few times, usually in Tony’s kitchen. The first time, Winter had bolted, leaving the seed cakes behind. It had taken Tony the better part of two hours to find him, curled up and hiding, single wing spread over his head to protect himself, in one of the far storage rooms.

“Hey, no,” Tony had said. “No, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” He had laid the seed cakes out, along with a small basket of fresh berries. “You can eat, all you want. It’s fine.”

Tony had never seen anything quite so beautiful, and yet achingly tragic, as the way Winter had peeked around his tattered wing to stare at Tony, full of fear and doubt and gratitude all at the same time.

Rather than deal with _any_ of it, Tony had fled back to his workshop with renewed determination.

Aaaand, he was distracted again; brought back to the present by Bruce’s thundering wingclaps as he fluttered around the base of the Tower.

Storms! He’d forgotten to tell Winter they were expecting a guest. Tony cursed again, threw himself up -- he’d been walking, for the most part, since Winter’s arrival, not wanting to upset his guest, but he could move faster if he flew. “Marvel, tell Bruce to settle down, okay? He’s not a hurricane. I’ll be right out with him, okay? Thank you. J, have you seen Winter recently? Oh, thank you, I owe you a fresh draw of nectar, remind me, you know I’ll forget.”

He swooped up through the center of the Tower and landed neatly on the nesting floors. Finding Winter was easy enough; he was pressed into the furthest corner of the nest space Tony had given him. Since his arrival, Winter had been venturing into the Tower and its multitude of storage rooms, selecting branches and decorations to adorn his nest, and what he’d built was an enormous pendant nest that dangled securely from a high branch, ribboned with colorful bits of cloth in a pattern that Tony could almost, but not quite, understand.

Tony folded his wings against his back. “Hey there,” he said, cautious. “I know, that was big, and terrifying, and… look, can you at least come over to the entrance? I feel like I’m talking to your nest and that’s just rude. I’d feel a lot better if I could see you? Yeah? Oh, okay, good, there you are. Hey… that’s my friend. Bruce. I know, he’s very loud. But it’s okay. He can’t come up in the tree, he’s too big, but… I was wondering if you’d come out to meet him? I told him a little about you, and… Look, I’m good with machinery. I build things, that’s what I do. But he knows more about people. I want him to take a look at your shoulder, and your wing-stump here, to see if my idea will work. Can you do that? Can you come say hello? And just let him look?”

Winter crept out, dropping gracefully to the platform. He nodded, but his face was pale and every bit of him trembled.

“It’s all right. Bruce won’t hurt you either,” Tony promised, and that was a promise he could absolutely keep. The worst danger Bruce presented was accidentally knocking someone over by turning around too fast. Usually. Tony tried hard not to remember the times Bruce had gotten angry, and the sort of juggernaut he turned into. But this was just a simple medical inspection, everything would be fine, right?

“Now, just to warn you, Bruce is pretty big,” Tony said. He put one hand on Winter’s arm, for comfort, in case it was needed. “So, don’t be scared, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

***

“Brucie, poppet, darling,” Tony said.

Truth, Tony wasn’t pushing, or dragging, but Winter felt propelled out of the Tower and into open ground, where anything could attack them from the sky, from the land, and Winter’s gaze darted around, nervously. He scratched once or twice at the ground, feeling the earth crumbling under his talons.

The smell… reptilian. Set all his nerves on end; nagas? Not one he’d met before, but…

And then Tony turned around the larger root-wall. “Oh, there you are!”

Winter stared. At first, all he saw was a giant… green and purple… boulder? Maybe twice as tall as Tony, and more than double his height long.

And then it moved. Slow, ponderous, but sinuously. Like a great ball python uncurling from a nap.

The creature kept moving until it unwrapped itself. Like the naga, Bruce was human from the navel up, a belt of golden scales moved into a long, graceful tail, adorned with a double row of jagged bone plates. He had broad, powerful shoulders and despite the snake-like body and tail, was coated with colorful plumage. The tail split near the end into two end-prongs.

 _Couatl._ He didn’t even know they were real.

Winter couldn’t breathe.

“Brucie,” Tony said again. “You’re lookin’ good.”

Bruce finished uncoiling, lazy, but still full of arrested movement, as deadly as a cobra. The ultimate predator, one that didn’t need to be perpetually ready to strike, because its prey could never escape. He unfurled two enormous, feathery wings and flapped them, sending great gales of wind swirling around Tony. It was impossible that those wings could possibly lift something as large and unwieldy as Bruce would be into the air.

The human part of him was… friendly-looking, at least. He had a shy smile and curly hair that flopped in his face. A tuft of feathers stood up from his brow, like a gaudy crown. “Tony. Good to see you.”

“So, this --” Tony turned all the way around, looking for Winter. “Oh, there you are, honeybun. Come on, come over here and say hi to Bruce.”

“Tony, not everyone is as accepting as you are,” Bruce said. Green eyes gave Winter a searching glance and something in the couatl’s expression was kind.

“Nonsense,” Tony said. “Winter doesn’t think you’re going to hurt him, because Winter is very brave and intelligent, and you, my friend, are a giant cuddlemuffin.”

“Who just happens to be almost eighteen feet long, and can breathe fire,” Bruce pointed out.

But when Tony said it, Winter thought maybe he could be brave. Tony was still all right, wasn’t he? After what seemed to be enough of a friendship that he could address the feathered serpent in such a casual manner.

Winter took a few steps forward, and then a few more. There was something very regal about the couatl, a creature who deserved respect. Winter engaged in a formal greeting, mantling his wing as much as he could, shaking the feathers out, and bowing his head. “Fair skies,” Winter said.

“Safe landing,” Bruce said, raising up to his full height and returning Winter’s bow. Despite the man now towering over him, Winter was less afraid, not more.

At full stretch, Bruce was gorgeous, graceful. His belly down was a pale green and the stripe down the center of his back was a dull purple. He coiled his tail around him until he’d sunk down into an almost seated position, which put him still quite a bit taller than Tony, or Winter.

Winter lost track of the conversation for some time, as Bruce and Tony shot back and forth words about craft, core metal temperatures, wind and air resistance, weight, and bone capacity, tensile strength. Things Winter knew nothing about. He found himself restless, in Bruce’s protective shadow -- what predator would be fool enough to attack here, with the couatl standing guard?

He scratched, turning up a number of small insects, which he greedily devoured. It had been some time -- he couldn’t remember…

He _couldn’t_ remember.

Was that right? How could that be right? Surely, he’d been free at one point. He’d spoken of a nest, of being taken. He knew the sun, knew the powerful feel of air beneath his wings. Like a dream, not a memory.

Strange.

He scratched more. Someone must have taught him this, at one point. He had a mother, right? Nest-mates? He wasn’t born in the mines, surely he would have known that. There were no nests in the mines, but he’d known how to craft his, as soon as Tony had given him space to do so, had woven lovely patterns on the inside to look at and enjoy.

How old was he, when he’d been taken? He remembered fear, and the shackles going on around his legs.

What… what had happened before that?

There had to have been a _before_ that. He was an adult, he…

***

_Hydra had a new weapon; the nagas were usually kept out of the trees._

_They could slither up ramps, or if the tree was narrow enough, they could coil around it, yanking themselves upward, but in either of those cases, the avians could fight them off, flying around and throwing spears._

_But Hydra had developed a rock-thrower._

_They hauled their creaking wooden machines to the trees, loaded them, and the trees crumbled under the impact._

_Avians were crushed by the huge stones, and even a glancing blow could knock one out of the air._

_The siege wasn’t fast; not like the raids the nagas sometimes staged, grabbing one or two chicks, and fleeing into the tunnels._

_The siege lasted for weeks, while the avians tried to destroy the machines._

_Finally, under Howard Stark’s direction, with a whole group of others, Steve and Bucky had launched a daring raid, hauling a net full of stones, and flown directly over the rock-thrower. They’d flown high, well out of range of the machine, up where the air was thin, and then dropped their load of stone._

_The wind was cold in Bucky’s hair, pushing it off his face. He was grateful: hauling the stone was hard work, and flying in concert was even harder. “Remember that time when I talked you into flying near that cyclone, Stevie?”_

_“Yeah, and I got caught in the downdraft and spun around until I threw up? I remember.”_

_“This isn’t payback, is it?”_

_“Now, why would I do that?” Steve said, laughing. “We’re coming up on the drop point.”_

_The drop had been successful._

_Mostly._

_When they circled the battlefield, to get a closer look, was when it had all gone wrong._

_Slings and spears had greeted them, and Bucky’d been wounded._

_“I’m gettin’ you off the field, pal,” Steve said, flying over him and grabbing hold of Bucky’s harness. “You need a medic.”_

_“I can fly, y’punk, lemme go,” Bucky scoffed._

_And then he’d been struck, a hard stone in the middle of his back. Bucky’d flipped, gotten his tailfeathers crossed, fallen. Grabbed out, gotten hold of a branch. Wings useless as his shoulder went numb._

_“Hang on, hang on!” Steve yelled._

_But he couldn’t hold on. He reached for Steve’s hand…_

_Reached._

_And missed._  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter refers to Scarlet Witch/Wanda in a negative light. she does not actually appear in this fic.

 

 

“Can’t you just do your bibbity bobbity boo schtick on him?” Tony perched on the branch over Bruce’s head, which gave him the illusion of being taller than the couatl. That was all it was, an illusion, and Bruce smiled tolerantly. He probably knew exactly what Tony was up to and letting him do it. They’d been friends for a long time.

Winter had stayed outside for a while, long enough to let Bruce look at him. Displayed his back, his wing, the stump end. With Tony’s gentle coaxing, Winter had let Bruce touch him, once, lightly, to test the strength of those muscles in his shoulder. Then, while Tony and Bruce discussed the logistics of the artificial wing, Winter seemed to lose interest. He scratched in the dirt for a while, at ease under the shelter of the coatl’s shadow.

Truly, no one had to be watchful; anything with even half a nose stayed out of the way of the winged snake. Bruce was both enormous and very serpent-like, eighteen feet long, at least, with a very long tail with a massive talon on each of the bifurcated ends. He moved, sinuous and graceful, with the same mesmerizing sway of the cobra and he was able to calm his prey with the same side-to-side movements. For a while, post Tony’s imprisonment; Tony had relied on Bruce’s soothing, hypnotic behavior to calm him, to let him rest. Strange, to rely on a predator that could have eaten him in a single gulp and had room for a whole nest more, but Bruce was one of the rare ones.

A predator that chose to recognize the intellect and souls of prey species. Bruce fed entirely on beasts, animals with no tool-building skills or community. “We must feed,” Bruce had told Tony, in the beginning, “but the thinking creature can make choices not to be cruel.”

After scraping up a few handfuls of grubs and beetles, Winter had taken his snack back into the nest to eat. The poor avian had not offered to share, which would have been polite, and Tony would have politely refused, but he couldn’t blame Winter for a lack of manners. Where would a slave have benefited from society?

“He’s traumatized, and he’s been in the tender care of Hydra for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used some form of their own hypnosis to keep their slaves docile,” Bruce pointed out, bringing Tony back to the present. “If I start trying to put him under, it’ll work, but you’ll also lose all the ground you’ve gained, getting him to trust you.”

“I can’t believe you want me to go to the witch,” Tony grumbled. He had history with the Scarlet Witch, and none of it was _good_. For that matter, Bruce had history with the witch, and his history was decidedly worse.

“She’s trying to make amends,” Bruce pointed out. “And she’s an herb master. She’ll be able to mix something up to ease Winter’s pain, and let us help him.”

“But why do _I_ have to go?” Tony was plaintive, whining like a child and he knew it. The Witch gave him a serious case of the creeps, and he didn’t want to leave Winter alone for the few days it would take to make the trip.

“You know why.”

Bruce didn’t like to talk about it, but when the Witch had torn him loose from reality, he’d done quite a bit of damage to a nearby village and the elves had still not forgiven him. He couldn’t forgive himself, so Tony supposed that was reasonable. The elves, however, were not allowing Bruce near their territory, and the route around would take weeks.

“All right, all right,” Tony finally caved. “I’ll go, but not now. I need to stay. Winter… needs someone around. He gets all… lost in his head. I don’t want him to wander away and get hurt.”

Tony would never, ever put limits on where Winter could go, or what he could do, and he didn’t give voice to the situation in terms of Winter _running away_ , even though it was sort of what it would be. It wasn’t up to him; if what Winter needed was to leave, to find his own way, Tony would fight to the death for him to have that opportunity.

At the same time, he was pretty sure that the former slave _would_ wander off, if someone wasn’t there to take care of him. Not because he thought Tony would want to chain him down, but because he was still scared and trying to deal with the huge reality that was a life _without_ chains.

Tony knew that feeling; he’d been captive for a much shorter period of time, but when he was finally free again, he’d felt ill at ease in his own skin, going for long, brutally exhausting flights until his shoulders burned and his eyes were blurry, just because he could.

And Winter couldn’t even do that. Not yet.

Freedom wasn’t free. And there was going to be a cost involved, because there was no way Tony was just going to let the poor man wander, lost and alone, without even the means to defend himself.

“I should have a prototype ready by the crescent moon,” Tony said. “I’ll go after that.”

“You might want to show him,” Bruce said, reaching up with one overly large finger to tap Tony’s chest. “So he knows that he can trust you.”

Tony scowled, putting his hand over the arc reactor. He wasn’t ashamed of his adaptations, but avians looked at him with pity and disgust when they saw what he’d done to himself. And there had been those who tried to steal it for their own gain. _Never again_.

“You are meddling,” Tony accused Bruce, because it was true.

“I am only giving direction to your thoughts,” Bruce said. Which was also true. “You’d come to the same conclusions yourself, given time.”

***

Tony was gone to the market, bartering for food and supplies. It was, Tony said, one of the hardships of being a blacksmith. He had less time to forage. So, trading at the free markets was required. When Tony had mentioned it, Winter felt a deep seated shame: he was taking _charity_ , siphoning off Tony’s supplies and giving nothing back. Exactly what the avians knew he would be doing, and exactly why they would kill him.

He kept thinking he should leave. But that was death, and Winter hadn’t yet decided that death was preferable. If not leaving, Winter should find some way to be useful on his own. To bring something into Tony’s nest. He would forage, he decided. He could do short patrols around the nest, scratch up grubs and worms.

Winter crept into the forge; Tony had invited him there several days before, but Winter hadn’t been able to bring himself to move into the weirdly lit room whenever Tony was there, banging on the metals. The sounds reminded him too much of the mines, the smell, the way smoke hung in the air.

He thought, perhaps, he might find a weapon here, something to keep him safer while he worked for his keep.

But also, curiosity drove him there, now that Tony was gone.

See what it was that his labor had bought for Tony, see what it was that drove the other avian to spend so much time there, among the heat and stench and glowing, orange light.

Tony had cleared a space along one wall; dozens of sheets of thinly woven cloth with inked designs were hung there. Winter examined each, closely. They looked like… wings? With sharp edges and impossibly straight feathers.

Winter stretched his fingers out and brushed them along the drawings -- he hadn’t seen much art before. Enough to know what it was, in a memory that wasn’t a memory, a dream that had happened, although it often seemed like those memories had happened to someone else. Some other Winter. The one called _Bucky_.

Tony had a lot of tables in his forge, covered with tools and bits of his heated rocks. Bins full of the stuff he called iron. Thin, impossibly tough vines of it -- wire, Tony had said -- and sheets and little knobs and nodules.

Winter lifted one of the thin pieces, held it up to the light. It glittered seductively; a thin rod up the center and hundreds of delicate barbs stuck out at precise angles.

“It’s a feather,” Tony said, and Winter nearly dropped it in shock. “Artificial, of course. A prototype. Unfortunately, iron molded that thin, it doesn’t hold its shape for actual flight; the material’s just… not well suited for that particular task. Decorative only. Maybe, once we get the flight model working, I can add some in, just for the aesthetics of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Winter said, putting the feather back down on the table. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no, that’s fine. It’s for you, eventually. Come on, wanna look at the newest model?” Tony went to another table and whipped a large sheet of cloth off--

A wing.

A full framework, metal… wing.

It was…

 _Beautiful_.

“I still have some adjustments to do,” Tony said, apologetic. “It’s not ready for a test flight, not yet, but soon, soon, I think I’ll have it, and… come here, don’t be shy, let’s see how it fits.”

Winter took a few, tentative steps forward until he could touch the wing. “For me?”

“Of course, for you,” Tony said. “Do you see anyone else around here who needs one? No. This is for you, everything I’ve been doing is for you. Now, we might want you to work-- actually, that’s a good idea, you’ll need to get those muscles back in shape. I noticed you walk a little… hunched over, I know, left over from protecting your stump but--” Tony reached and Winter couldn’t help it, flinched away, his wing coming up to shield him. “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just wondering if your stump’s strong enough to bear the weight of it, right now. Come here, come here, sit, sit. I’ll strap it on and we’ll see how it goes. I mean, for actual flight, we’ll need something a little more durable, but that’ll come after we test.”

Winter found himself pushed -- gently, so gently -- onto a bench. There was a hollow tube end that slid right over the stump with a leather harness that went around Winter’s chest to hold it in place.

“There, flex that, see how that feels,” Tony encouraged him. “Once you get used to that, we can add in the rest of the framework, and then hang your flight feathers onto it.”

Winter stretched; he’d barely moved the coracoid bone, all that remained of his wing, at all. With nothing on there, flapping the stump around had always made him feel nauseated, scared. His shoulder ached, just from moving it a few times, but he could move it, and the weight of the metal cap felt…

 _Good_.

“Yeah, that’s the ticket,” Tony said. “We’ll want to work that out, a sort of… remedy routine or something, to make sure you get your strength back. No sense in getting you in the air if you can’t stay there, am I right?”

“You…”

Winter couldn’t breathe suddenly. He had been so overwhelmed by the way Tony jabbered at him, Winter hadn’t thought all the way through the implications. “You think I can fly, again? With this…”

“Contraption?” Tony suggested the word. “It’s certainly possible. It’s a theory, right now. But hey, gravity is a theory and look how well that works.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can lift and support the entire wing structure,” Tony promised. “Which should give me some time to make sure we have a kite for you.”

“A what?”

“I refuse to build something this beautiful and perfect and have you crash into the ground on a test flight,” Tony said. “So… a backup kite; a glider. With an automated deploy system, in case of critical failure.”

Winter nodded, slow. He wasn’t sure he needed a glider, whatever that was. If he was given this impossible, burning hope of being able to fly again, he was positive that he’d rather crash into the ground than lose the hope.

He tipped his face toward the sky, and even unseeing, he felt lighter, somehow.

“Tell me what to do.”

***

Once Winter had seen the wing, had gotten Tony to explain it to him, it seemed there was nothing Tony wanted to do more than talk.

The first few weeks that Winter had been in the nest, Tony had avoided him, as if disgusted by Winter’s wingless, crawling, revolting self.

But having seen the wonders that Tony created, given that skill its due adoration, it seemed Winter had won himself a place. Tony was alone, and avians, well, avians craved flock, didn’t they? Tony had been alone for a long time; he refused to say how long, refused to say why, beyond the fear most avians had of fire.

Winter wasn’t much a flock, but he was _something_ , and Tony had been jabbering at him non-stop ever since.

Enough so that Winter had stopped cringing away and had started _listening_.

Tony had a sweet voice and the way his whole face animated when he was speaking, he was like the sun and the stars and the moon all at once.

Beautiful.

Which in turn was wonderful and tormenting at the same time. Winter would have stayed at Tony’s side, just to listen and watch and learn. But Winter had nothing to offer in return. No skills beyond that of digging rocks from the earth. He was useless. There were a few things he’d managed to find that he could do to help. Winter was strong; stronger by far than most avians; working the mines had given him arm strength and tougher bones than most of his kin. Winter could carry a load at least twice as heavy as what Tony could manage.

And Tony, it seemed, needed a keeper. Someone to bring him food, make sure he drank. Kept an eye on how many were left of those wretched little coffee beans that Tony ate constantly to give himself alertness beyond the normal means of avian endurance. Gently chivvied him away from the forge and into his nest to sleep.

“What is this?” Winter asked one day, finding a set of red-painted gloves; thick and plated, yet flexible. Winter couldn’t help running his fingers over the gauntlets, to feel the minute articulation in the joints. Each glove had a brilliant blue plate in the center of the palm, like a jewel.

“An experiment,” Tony said. There was a fey, suspicious light in his eyes, like he wanted to snatch the gauntlets away from Winter.

Winter took a cautious step away, putting his hands behind his back. He knew, instinctively, that his spine was curling, that he was lowering his head, _don’t look at me, don’t notice me, I didn’t do anything._

“Hey,” Tony said, and he was a lot closer than Winter expected. “It’s okay, look. I just… avians don’t like it when I remind them how unnatural I am. But… you deserve better than that. I’m sorry, that’s a me-thing. I’ve learned not to share too much of myself with people.”

“It’s hard to unlearn,” Winter responded, because he knew that feeling, he knew it all the way down to his bones and the airsacks inside them. “But I don’t think you’re unnatural.” He waved a hand at all the wonders of Tony’s workshop and forge.

“You haven’t… okay, okay,” Tony said, taking a few deep breaths. He pulled off the leather apron he was wearing, then another, shuddering inhalation. “If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone. Right?”

“You can trust me.” Winter put his hand on Tony’s arm, feeling the smooth skin, the play of muscle underneath. The way Tony was shaking with tension.

Tony nodded. Popped the shoulder clasps of his shirt and unbuttoned the side. Winter had wondered, before, about the covering. Most avains didn’t bother to wear any chest coverings, unless it was brutally cold. The material got in the way of flight, and they were awkward to put on and take off without help. Tony’s shirts were buttoned in such a fashion that he could take them off without too much trouble, or fouling his feathers.

When he finished, he straightened, and Winter suddenly understood why Tony always wore one.

The device that shone out of the middle of his chest was like nothing Winter had ever seen before. Luminescent, perfectly round, it was embedded there, held in a metal socket, glowing and making that soft whirring sound that Winter had caught the edges of before, but didn’t understand. It was… like a star. A shimmering jewel in the night sky that whispered secrets that Winter couldn’t possibly understand.

“What is it?” He reached out, wanted to touch it. Was it warm or cool? What did the surface feel like, ridged or silken smooth? He raised his eyes to look at Tony’s face. “It’s beautiful.”

Tony grabbed Winter’s wrist, his grip strong, steady. For a long moment, they stood like that, Winter unsure if he was being pushed away, and then Tony drew him in, slowly, until his fingertips rested against the pulsing machine.

“It keeps my heart beating,” Tony said. “Saved my life. I built the first one in a cave with a box of spare parts for humans who’d kidnapped me, wanting me to make weapons for them, the way Howard made weapons.”

“Humans?” Winter asked. He didn’t know humans were actually real. They were creatures of myth, legend. The origin, perhaps, of all the demihumans, nagas and avians and even such creatures like Bruce… _or Pierce_.

Tony nodded. “They exist. They exist and they’re brutal and uncaring and they live to make war on each other. The things they did, to make me do what they wanted--”

“You don’t have to speak of that,” Winter told him, because he already knew what it was to be worn down, made into a servant, a tool, through pain and loss. “I know… I know what they did to you.” He didn’t, not the details, but he couldn’t help but flex the stub of his wing. _He knew._ He knew too much.

“So, I built the arc-reactor, to keep my heart beating,” Tony said.

Winter wondered if Tony realized that he was still keeping Winter’s hand trapped over the reactor. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to pull back. The reactor was strange, but it wasn’t frightening.

“And then I built these,” Tony said, releasing Winter and pulling on one of the gauntlets. He stretched his fingers out, then attached a little set of leather-wrapped wires to a plug on the side of the reactor. “And I killed every single man who got in my way.”

He whirled on one foot, aimed at a target dummy at the end of the forge. A shimmering light built in his palm, like he’d captured a star and was offering it to the gods. A bolt of light, faster than thought, burst from his hand, and the target dummy whumped backward, caught fire and smoldered fitfully. “Repulsor cannon,” Tony said. “A weapon unlike anything my father created. I… I could level a city with this, if I wanted. Too much power. But I can’t unmake it. So, I keep it here, keep it safe. Keep it away from everyone. There are avians who would want me to use it; they still come, sometimes, try to persuade me to their wars and their raids.” Tony swallowed hard. “Like the one where they brought you to me. I’m sorry. I should have gone. I should have helped you.”

“You’re helping me now,” Winter said, because that was the truth.

“I’m a coward,” Tony said. “I’m hiding from everyone, from everything, because I don’t like what I’ve become.”

“I like what you are,” Winter said, because it was all that he could offer.

“Yeah, thanks, sweetheart,” Tony said. He stripped the glove off, put it back on its table and covered it. He gave Winter a sweet smile, went back to what he’d been doing, and they didn’t speak of it again. But Winter noticed that, if they weren’t expecting guests, Tony was not as quick to pull his shirt on in the morning, and sometimes Winter found himself watching.

***

Sometimes, in the late evenings, Winter would sing to Tony.

It was nice to sing, Winter found. He’d never considered himself a particularly talented singer. Sometimes those slaves with lovely voices had been taken off, to sing for the foreman, and those few lucky ones were better fed, worked less hard, than the rest. Winter had never been taken, so he didn’t think his voice was all that special.

But Tony insisted that he liked it. It was soothing, was what Tony claimed, and if it was something that Winter could do to help, to earn a place, he would sing until not a note came from his throat, would sing until he lost his voice entirely.

Not that Tony would allow it; he seemed unexpectedly concerned for Winter’s health, comfort, and well-being.

Still, singing. And bringing Tony food. Those were things his aves friends could do for him. Winter needed to be able to do something more. Better. Earn his keep.

His fingers twitched in the direction of the wing; under the sheet where Tony kept it when they weren’t directly working on it.

They hadn’t quite made a practice flight yet; everything was pushing up from the ground. Hard-flight. And Winter could push himself up a few feet, before fluttering back down safely.

Child’s play.

Most adult avians took off from the treetops, gaining momentum, using air currents to their advantage.

If Winter could _fly_ , he could scavenge further, bring back more, faster. Tony was gone, to town, trading for supplies. Something Winter could do, if he could fly.

He’d unwrapped the wing before he could talk himself out of it.

Tony had helped him with the buckles and straps, but Winter knew how it was done.

“Sir, I advise against this in the highest possible manner,” Jarvis, the little aves, fluttered around Winter’s head, bobbing up and down like anxiety given form.

“I can do it,” Winter protested, flapping his hand at the little bird.

“There are near uncountable accidents waiting to happen, if you attempt a solo flight without proper oversight!”

“Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk,” Winter said. He couldn’t help the smile; it’d been too long since he felt this light, this weightlessness. Even a month ago, he would have cringed back, hidden away from anything, even an aves the size of his fist, who’d spoken to him in such a commanding tone.

“That does not make sense, sir,” Jarvis continued tweeting, dodging Winter’s flapping hand with ease, “nor does it apply in these particular circumstances. I do with you would reconsider--”

Winter finished buckling the wing up. It was heavier than a normal wing, given the construction materials, but Tony had weighted the harness to keep Winter stable in flight, centering the excess weight for balance. There were a few drag-weights for his tailfeathers as well; heavier wings needed heavier rectrices for steerage.

Winter climbed out onto the second landing flet. He stared up at the sky and let his body take over. He spread his wings; both of them responded beautifully to the movement of shoulder and back. Just standing there, wings raised, felt more like freedom than anything else ever had.

_All I need is the air. Bring me that horizon._

Winter jumped.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** note: Snakes do not actually hypnotize their prey; they can’t blink and the head-motion they use is a way for the snake to accurately gauge distances. The weaving motion a basket cobra does is because the flute player is wobbling the flute and the snake (frequently defanged) is feeling threatened. That being said, this is a story, and the snake-as-hypnotist fits in with Hydra’s brainwashing motif.
> 
> *** adorably cute art by [monobuu](http://monobuu.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

 

Tony heard Winter before he could see him; a whooping shriek that got Tony’s heart pumping and his wings beating furiously against the air. The arc-reactor pulsed in time with his increased heart rate, giving him more strength, more endurance. He tried not to rely on that boost of power too often; each little bit brought him closer to exhaustion, his body pushing itself past normal endurance, but the sound--

Either a warcry or a shout of terror, and in either case, it couldn’t mean anything good for his wingless guest. Tony pushed harder, flying up that he could dive when he got in sight of the Tower.

Winter wasn’t screaming in rage or fear, but in exhilaration.

The avian was swooping around the Tower in graceful dives, the artificial wing glowing like a star in the morning sun as Winter plummeted toward the ground at top speed, then spread the wings and rocketed up, wings outstretched, hands reaching for the sky.

Beautiful.

Winter was radiant.

Tony had never seen anything quite so pure and uncomplicated as Winter, taking joy in flight.

His heart thumped a few times, extra hard.

Tony had done this. Tony had given this solace to another. Fierce exhilaration filled Tony’s chest, aching there, and he cried out a greeting, a boisterous  _kyaaaar_ against the sky, and Winter twisted, mid-dive, to meet him.

Winter whooshed, nearly passed Tony, then grabbed his hands at the last second, pulling Tony up into the climb, spinning and twisting in an aerial dance that was…

Skies, was Winter coaxing him into a courtship flight? There wasn’t much time to consider a yes or no, reaching the top of their summit. Courtship wasn’t mating, however. A yes now could be a no, later. All it was was a signal of  _intent_.

These last few weeks, with Winter at his side, in his life, Tony had felt… part of something again. He wasn’t eager to let that go.

They reached the apex and Tony flipped, arcing away from Winter, and they dove, opposite and equal, forming the skyhearts, the signal that they were both interested in pursuing attraction, to see what would come of it.

Winter snatched Tony in mid-air, hands clasped, and they spun around again, ascending again. At the pinnacle, before gravity claimed them, and they were forced to tumble downward, once again, Tony let his arms go around Winter’s neck, let the full power of the artificial wing bear their combined weight, tilted his head, and collected a kiss.

A brush of lips, and then they swooped, raced each other down to meet again, mid-air, before Winter spread his wings, and lowered them to the flet.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” Winter crowed as soon as their talons touched the iron-laced wood. His face was wild, almost feral, hair in total disarray, gray eyes sparkling like stars. “Thank you, thank you for this, oh, skies and clouds, I never! Oh… oh, Tony. Tony, I remember! I remember  _everything_!”

“That’s excellent, Winter,” Tony said. He couldn’t help the smile that was stretching his lips, the way his whole insides were warm and light.

Winter frowned, tipped his head to one side. “That’s not my name.” he said. “That’s what  _they_ called me. My name is Bucky.”

Tony winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know--”

“No, no, that’s fine, it’s what I told you, but…” Bucky was practically giddy with delight, still smiling so hard that Tony’s face hurt in sympathy. “Oh, oh, oh, I need to talk to Steve, do you know where he is, I can’t believe I didn’t-- oh, my stars, I need to tell him!”

Tony wasn’t having much luck in following the conversation at all, but he just waited. Eventually Winter--no, Bucky, eventually Bucky would calm down, hopefully.

The burning ache of wanting that Wint--Bucky had igniting, mid-air, was fading, banking down. “Hey, hey,” Tony said, reaching out one hand. “This was very exciting today, yeah, wasn’t it? But let’s get this harness off you and we’ll do a post-performance evaluation?”

Bucky took a step back. “If you take it off--”

“You won’t be able to fly for a few minutes,” Tony said, reassuring him. “But we’ll be inside, and I want to see how it went, and what parts need to be reinforced. It’ll be good. I’ll give it right back, and then I can start working on something a little more long-wearing and permanent.”

“I… I need to see Steve,” Bucky said. “We…” And he looked right at Tony, without flinching or embarrassment or anything, “we promised to each other, a long time ago. That we wouldn’t mate--” And with those words, Tony felt like the heart that had been in his hands, ready to offer, was cast aside without even looking.

“I see,” Tony said. He took a deep breath. He’d suffered wounds before, at the hands of his father, of Ten Rings, and even from the Captain, and he’d never let anyone see him bleed. He’d be ground-damned for the rest of his life before he’d let Bucky see how badly he was hurting. “Okay. We’ll make this quick, then, and you can go see him. In fact, you can just stay; I’m sure Steve will be delighted to see you again, and know you’ve made a good recovery. I’ll come and visit when I’ve got the new rig set up?”

Tony didn’t notice, or told himself he didn’t notice, and in the end that was the same thing, that Winter--that Bucky’s enthusiasm was suddenly dimmed. Waiting even the hour or so it would take to make the diagnostic checks was impossible for him to endure. He must want to see Steve pretty desperately.

And yet, after so much work and time (and love), Tony would be damned if the first thing that happened as soon as Bucky was out of his sight, was that he’d crash. Work first, heartbreak later.

***

The first hour or two -- Tony hadn’t even come with him, and that had been so strange that Bucky didn’t even know what to think -- was all joyous reunion. Steve had been on patrol, so his second, Sam -- Bucky recognized, but didn’t trust, Steve’s new friend -- had gone to fetch him.

And seeing Bucky, artificial wing spread, tall and straight and smiling; Steve had practically fallen out of the sky with joy.

Steve was pretty much the only one who was happy to see Bucky.

Many of the other avians stared at him, like he was a ghost. Or a demon. The artificial wing drew everyone’s attention. No matter how beautiful it was, or how much it had saved Bucky’s soul. To everyone else, it was a fearful machine, and they drew back from it. Drew back from Bucky.

He kept it folded against his back as much as possible, all silver, gleaming metal and red framework feathers, but even that much was enough. It was obvious that Tony Stark had made it, and there were mutterings and whispers that Bucky couldn’t understand. And didn’t really want to.

But Steve-- oh, skies, Steve was so happy to see him.

Sam went along with whatever Steve said, and while he and Bucky would probably never be truly comfortable in the other’s presence, Bucky was glad to see that Steve had a friend.

“Where’s Howard?” Bucky asked, once the initial how are yous and are you hungry’s were done.

“He died. Several years ago,” Steve told him. “Tony didn’t say?”

Bucky scowled. “Tony doesn’t talk about himself much.”

Sam scoffed. “That’s a hoot. Never get that avian to shut up when he lived here. It’s better this way. Stark’s a strange duck, that one.”

_Strange_ , Bucky thought.  _Yes. But beautiful. And kind. And perfect._

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Steve about the courting flight. How wonderful and amazing it was, how just the touch of Tony’s mouth, the way they’d flown together in absolute harmony, had brought all the pieces of Bucky’s mind back together. Given him back to himself in one, crystal moment.

“He’s never going to come back here,” Steve said. “Likes his fires and his forges too much. Pity the avian who tries to settle that one. He doesn’t flock, not at all.”

Steve… wouldn’t approve?

And that cut, cut like a knife through the tendons of his wing. Bucky told himself it didn’t matter; the way he felt about Tony didn’t depend on what others thought of him.

At the same time, Bucky had been so long without a flock, so long without the comforts and community of his fellow avians, could he give it all up? To have Tony, and Tony only?

Maybe… well, he and Tony hadn’t talked, after that flight; everything was all mechanics and aerodynamics and weight control, and pain management after that.

Speaking of which; the muscles in his shoulder were hurting. Pretty badly.

And he didn’t have a nest. Not here. An hour or more’s flight across the open firebreak to th one he’d built at Tony’s tree. He rubbed fitfully at the harness.

“Steve, c’n… would it be permitted? Does your mate mind?”

“Mind what, Buck?”

“I need rest, before I can fly again.”

“Stark’s wonder wing not so wonderful?” Sam asked. That was sarcastic, and Bucky raised an eyebrow.

“It works fine,” Bucky retorted. “I’m the weak one. I haven’t flown much, not in decades. I’m out of practice. I need rest.”

“It’s fine, Buck,” Steve said. “Sam’s just being territorial.”

Sam was Steve’s mate?

“Now, don’t be sore, Buck,” Steve was saying. “You were gone, and I didn’t… I didn’t think I was even waiting for you to come home and stand with me. When it happened, it happened. Come on. Nat’s brooding, and I want you to meet her. You’ll like her, I promise. Sam’s our co-mate. We’ve got a whole nest full of eggs, just waiting to hatch.”

Steve put an arm around Bucky’s back, just under the wing-harness, and Bucky was ashamed to admit how much of his weight he let Steve take up, but he was exhausted.

Tony had warned him, he had. But Bucky had been too excited, too free, too… well, maybe too stupid, really, to listen. He wanted to see his friends and his home, to feel the air under his wings.

“It’ll be fine, pal,” Steve was saying. “Let’s get you settled in, yeah?”

“Okay,” Bucky said, and he couldn’t help a glance over his shoulder. Would Tony expect him… home? The word tasted weird on his mental tongue, like maybe he didn’t have the right to call Tony’s nest  _home_.

Certainly, Tony hadn’t said anything to him, about the courting flight. Was… was he rejecting Bucky’s courtship?

Wouldn’t he have said that? Would he have kissed Bucky, so sweet and tender and needy, if he was saying no?

Damn it. Bucky was aching and exhausted and all he wanted to do was go home, to look at Tony’s perfect face and figure out what the hell was wrong. But it would have to wait. He needed sleep.

***

Bucky didn’t come back.

Of course Tony had told him not to, but he wasn’t sure he’d expected Bucky to listen to him quite that thoroughly. He’d left all his things behind.

Although when Tony went into Bucky’s flet, there really wasn’t that much there. Food. A few items of clothing. The impossibly beautiful bowl that Bucky had hand carved from a gnarl of tree root and polished to a satiny finish while keeping Tony company during construction.

Nevermind. Tony had more important things to do than pine over an avian that had only been so overcome with joy at flying again that he’d forgotten a promise to an old love.

Of course Bucky was going to go home and mate with the Captain. Collecting a regular flock all of his own, the Captain was. He was a good provider, fierce and brave and amazing. Anyone -- everyone -- would want to join his nest.

Because who else would ever have brought such a wretched creature to Tony to save but someone who desperately, desperately loved him. Of course the Captain wanted Tony to do something.

_Do something_  didn’t, however, mean falling in love with the Captain’s promised mate.

Tony scraped both hands over his face and pushed his hair back.

“Enough,” he told himself after more than two hours sitting in the room with Bucky’s hanging nest. “You have work to do. Feel sorry for yourself on your own time.”

He had much work to do; not just setting up the permanent harness for Bucky -- although that was his priority. The pins would have to screw into the man’s back, and he’d be out of the air for a few weeks while they healed, but the Scarlet Witch had been pretty convinced that Tony’s work and plans were good, that it would be like Bucky had never lost the wing. Maybe even better, since the artificial wing could be upgraded and repaired if anything ever happened to it.

Although, Bucky had seemed very frightened about the idea when Tony even tried to take the practice harness off him, that he’d be grounded again.

Hope was a thing with wings.

Were they not all things with wings, and Bucky, missing his. Once it had been replaced, no matter how difficult and heavy and unwieldy? Bucky had discovered he could fly again, and then Tony threatened to take it away from him? Even for a moment.

Tony wondered if he would have had the strength to give it up.

He pressed his hand over the arc-reactor, feeling the whirr of the machinery underneath his palm. Would he have had the courage, if he’d had any other choice?

Well, he would make both, Tony decided. The permanent kit, and a backup, a lighter, but more durable detachable harness. If Bucky didn’t want to be out of the sky for the weeks it would take for recovery, Tony would give him options.

All Bucky needed was the air.

He didn’t need Tony.

Didn’t  _want_ Tony.

That didn’t even matter, because Tony couldn’t ever give up. He couldn’t not make the beautiful things in his mind once he’d thought them.

He had to see them, touch them, improve them, give the children of his mind a physical form, let them free in the world. If Bucky didn’t want the rig, that was fine. But Tony could no more have not made it than he could have cut off his own wings.

He was deep in producing a second detachable harness; he’d had a brain wave in the middle of the night, and gotten up to test a new format of straps, when Wasp returned.

“It’s confirmed, Tony,” she said, a little sadly. “Some of the mines use slaves. All of them owned by the naga, Hydra and Aim, alike. There are others that use indentured servants; persons that owe money work it off in the mines, but the conditions are not much better. Of the mines that were scouted and counted, Mutant Brotherhood’s mine, and Shield’s mines, are both run off fair practices. On the plus side,” she continued, chipper, “most of the ore you’ve purchased comes from their mines. You’re very picky about the smelts and purity. But not all.”

“So, I’m complicit in the enslavement of who knows how many poor souls,” Tony said.

“To some degree,” Wasp said, “we all are. We, none of us, thought to investigate. Not what was going on in the mines, in other tribe’s territory, nor look into what happened to those men and women who were stolen from their homes. We have taken their raiding as just another hazard to be accepted, not something that we needed to band together in order to stamp out.”

Wasp landed on Tony’s shoulder, a tiny little thing no bigger than his hand span. “The Pym will join you in this fight,” she said, “if you chose to take the battle to them. To free who we can, to remove the slavers from the mine holdings.”

“Thank you,” Tony said. The Pyms would be great allies, all winged fliers and poisonous stings and determination. And Wasp was just as outraged and upset as Tony was; to think they had been a part of a system that accepted no oversight, that cost young men and women their lives.

“I’ll send out the call tomorrow,” she said. “We shall see who stands with us.” 


	7. Chapter 7

In the end, it was not merely Tony’s call to war that brought everyone to the battle, but that Hydra came, seeking revenge for the one closed mine, and perhaps, something more. The raiders had not only killed the nagas in the mines, but they’d taken slaves, freed them, and that seemed to rouse Hydra’s fury like no other.

 _How dare…_ seemed to be the general tenor of their war proclamations.

They hauled machines of war and destruction, not just the rock flingers, but great giant tree-cutters and spear throwers and a sort of flaming tree sap that burned hot and stuck to trees or to people without concern.

They came with troops and weapons.

Hundreds of them, armed to the teeth, wearing strangely-fitted hoods of metal that protected their vulnerable eyes and hearts, that made their very bodies into weapons with sharp spines that stuck out along the crest of their heads and down their backs.

They came with hate in their eyes.

And they came with Pierce, the head of Hydra.

Not a naga, this one, but a full sized, obscene multi-headed monster. Three long, scaley necks ascended from Pierce’s chest, each supported a head with a grotesque, overly long tongue that poked out between venom dripping fangs. Pierce was enormous, easily on par with Bruce; eighteen feet tall, and arms that could reach and grab and throw; snatching the avians from the air and smashing them into trees.

The battle raged, and Bucky only heard about it from time to time when flitters would come back to the village to fetch new bundles of arrows, to bring in the wounded when they could. Bucky couldn’t fly well enough to fight, but he knew a lot about carrying heavy loads. He brought supplies as needed to the landing flets, hauled the wounded down the great spirals to the healers’ nests.

When he heard that Pierce had joined with the clan of naga that had taken him as a sort of mascot-cum-deity, Bucky scowled.

“Tell them not to severe the necks,” he said, thrusting a leather bundle of spears at one of the flitters. “He’ll just grow two more heads.”

“Now you tell us,” the flitter’s scathing retort was stupidly painful, because who the hell would think to ask Bucky for an opinion, and how was he supposed to know it was required, but Bucky felt terribly guilty for having not somehow been able to transfer that information by the time it did any good.

He didn’t even get out the suggestion before the flitter was gone again. Fire, he thought, and he wondered if Tony was on the front line, if he was fighting.

If he was dead…

Bucky rubbed his shoulder. The gauntlet would do it, he thought. It would give Tony the advantage, enough to defeat Pierce, and no matter what, with Pierce gone, it was likely that the Hydra would break and run. They were fierce warriors, but they were also easily scared into hiding. They’d regroup and come at the avians again, but that would be later. More time to prepare.

He returned to Steve and Sam’s nest, where their co-mate, Natasha, was guarding the eggs.

She’d tried once already to persuade him that Bucky should guard the nest. He couldn’t fly well and she could; it was better for one to join the battle than none.

Bucky, on the other wing, couldn’t face the idea of telling Steve later that he’d let Natasha go into danger. Let Steve take the earful of her rage later; it wasn’t Bucky’s place to mother-hen a mate.

Not that mate, leastways, because if he could have sat on Tony and kept Tony from risk, he might well have done that. It didn’t even matter that Tony didn’t want him, didn’t want him to. If anything happened to Tony, it would never matter if Bucky could fly again. The part of him that needed air all around him, sky above… that part would die and even if he rode the winds again, he’d forever be _grounded._

The fighting drew closer to the village; Bucky climbed up one of the treetops, until the topmost branches to see what was going on. The view was terrible; the dead and the dying littered the forest floor. Trees were ripped out by the roots, destroyed as the war party moved closer and closer to the avian’s home.

There were chicks and fledglings, flightless or slow, weak and terrified, among the nests.

Bucky spotted Tony, darting among the troops, fighting with spears and nets.

No flashes of fire emanated from his hands. No golden and red metal.

Climbing down, Bucky handed off the spying glass to a flitter who was catching her breath. Sharon’s dove-white wings were soiled with ash and blood. “We’re all going to die,” she informed Bucky, seeming to not even notice who she was talking to.

“No, we won’t,” Bucky told her, and that decided him. Seeing Sharon so defeated, so despairing, Bucky had to act. He stretched out his exhausted wings, checked the straps. He might never fly again after this adventure, but it didn’t matter. He’d get what Tony needed; they could drive off Hydra together.

He took a few running steps and launched himself off the flet, in the direction of Tony’s forge.

***

They were going to die.

Tony had assessed the battlefield within a few moments of the joining of troops.

They were going to die, but they were going to make Hydra fight for every inch, they were going to make the cost as bloody and dear as they could, and it wasn’t going to be enough. But maybe, maybe, they could win through attrition. Posthumously, which would not be very good for the avians, or for the Pyms and the few others who joined them, but it might keep Hydra from taking over everything outside the mountain ranges and forests where their enemies once had lived.

Pierce was the wild card; when that monster appeared on the battlefield, the tide had turned. Destroying the nagas’ siege engines was dangerous, but simple. The cost to effort ratio was pretty damn good.

But when the Hydra had shown up, everything went to hell in a handbasket.

They’d learned not to attack him; he just kept getting stronger with each attack. There was no way to penetrate the armor he wore that protected his heart, and after several tries, the revolting monster was sporting at least a half-dozen extra heads; like a bundle of snakes poking out of the top of its broad chest. Tony had never seen anything like it.

He fervently hoped for the sake of the world that there were relatively few Hydra in existence. Some of the more powerful magical creatures had trouble mating, producing offspring; they were few in number and they couldn’t reproduce fast enough to keep up their population.

“Be good for him to go extinct,” Tony muttered, readying another set of ropes and nets. “World could use less of him, the creepy thing.” The best they could do was delay and bind the monster. Trip him, keep him tied down.

It didn’t work for long; Pierce was even stronger than he should have been and simple rope braids were like spiderwebs to his powerful arms.

Tony was so busy getting his nets straight that he missed that Pierce had closed the distance again. The enormous monster covered the entire area in his shadow like an omen of doom, the sort of eclipse of hope that terrorized children, forspoken in prophecy. All sorts of nasty unpleasant things, really, and Tony resented it.

He resented that Pierce was going to kill him

That he was never going to see Bucky again, even if Bucky didn’t want to see him. Even if Bucky never loved him. Tony would have wanted to see him, one more time.

Pierce raised one massive arm and snatched Tony out of the sky; the nets and ropes dropped uselessly to the ground.

Hitting the ground was horrifically painful. Tony sprawled there in the dirt, unable to breathe. Unable to do anything except stare as Pierce closed on him, hands grasping. Tony already knew how he was going to die; Pierce was taking great, obscene pleasure, in ripping the avians apart, left them bloody and screaming on the battlefield.

And then, as if some fairy from legend had granted a wish, Tony couldn’t see Pierce anymore. He could only see Bucky.

Bucky’s brilliant, glorious face filled his field of vision.

“Tony?”

“You’re here,” Tony said, reaching up to touch Bucky’s cheek. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I got you, honey,” Bucky told him, and there were warm, gentle arms around him, pulling Tony upright.

Why did everything still hurt so much? That wasn’t fair. Tony thought it might stop hurting once he’d died, and if Bucky was there, than Tony was dead, and probably Bucky was too, and that was kinda sad, but Tony could deal with it, if he could just…

“I got you first,” he told Bucky seriously.

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said. “Here, plug yourself in.” He yanked at a wire, pulled at Tony’s leather armor chest coverings.

“What, what are you--”

“You have to cauterize the wound,” Bucky told him. “It’s the only way to kill him. Cut the head off and sear it. I need your help.”

Oh. Boo. He wasn’t dead, and Bucky wasn’t here to guide Tony onto the next shell. They were still at war and Bucky was only holding him because Tony was _useful_.

 _Oh, stop crying and be useful_. Howard Stark’s voice had never sounded so disgusted as it did when he was inside Tony’s head and he couldn’t ignore it. Especially when Howard was right.

Tony followed the cabling down until he could yank on the gauntlets that Bucky had--

“How did you get these?” He’d left the gauntlets in his workshop, a good hour’s flight from the village, and Bucky had never been back.

“Flew some it of, ran the rest,” Bucky said. “Tore the old wing up when I crashed. I’m sorry, Tony, but I-- I took the new kit. I don’t know if you meant it for me, but I needed to get to you--”

“Of course I meant it for you, honey,” Tony told him. “Who else should ever have my masterwork?”

Bucky was still attaching the gauntlets, reaching under Tony’s chest covering to screw the leads into their ports, when Pierce reached them.

The shadow of the beast crossed over them, turning the air inexplicably colder in just seconds. Pierce was huge, ridiculous. There should be laws of nature that prevented something that big from moving that fast, or that quietly. He was also disturbing, Tony had to admit. The numerous faces, all handsome and smiling, then yawning extra wide, with jaws like a snake that showed off rows upon rows of needle teeth. Ug. Tony was going to die like this? It seemed so unfair.

Bucky shoved Tony aside, getting him out of the direct path of danger. He drew a pair of blades from his belt and launched himself up, the steely, artificial wing flashing in the few beams of sunlight that trickled into the trees. He looked like an angel, like a falling star, like…

Like he was in trouble! _Cyclone, Stark, think._ He took cover behind a large boulder, heard the hum of the arc-reactor as he charged the gauntlet’s weapon. “Bucky, watch out!”

Bucky spared Tony a momentary glance, but that brief look was intense enough to shock Tony with the avians’s bravery and determination. Nothing like the ex-slave, broken and battered, remained. Only a warrior. Bucky looped, flying in a circle around one head. “Get ready!”

Bucky practically glowed, his wing lined with sun, radiating confidence, strength. He swung his blades at the slender neck -- Pierce had grown so many heads he was like looking at some disgusting tentacled monster, upside down.

Tony wasn’t ready; he was terrified, and Bucky was so close, _thunder_ , all it would take was one wrong move, one inch in the wrong direction, and he’d hit Bucky with the blow. _If I hurt him, I might as well rip my own heart out._

Bucky darted in, blades drenched in gore in moments, and one of the heads came away from Pierce’s body.

Tony sprinted to get closer. Pierce growled and Bucky _kiyaared_ back in defiance. Tony didn’t dare stop, didn’t dare look, to see if Bucky was winning. He dropped to one knee, braced his arm, extended, palm out.

The explosion from the gauntlet was incredible, incandescent. It lit the area with fire, the bolt of energy rocketed toward the hydra, and sizzled across the bloody stump. The blackened flesh smoldered… hissed… and nothing grew back from the cauterized wound.

They could win.

They could actually win.

Bucky didn’t stop, calling others to him to fight, to chop and destroy. Tony had to dodge a few more decapitated heads (were they decapitated, or debodificated?) laying on the ground like fallen trees. He found a ride of high ground and dove onto it, using the earth for cover and advantage in one.

The bodies of his fellows -- his _flock_ \-- littered the ground and Tony burned with rage. Lit from within by a need for justice, for vengeance. To protect and defend, and all these Hydra snakes were going to die.

Tony used the gauntlet’s weapon to thin the ranks of serpents, waiting until another shot lined up with Pierce. Tony’s best bet was to pick off the ones that weren’t too close to the other avians, or risk hitting them.

One, two, three, heads fell off the scaly, massive trunk of Pierce, and Tony cauterized two. Someone else was fighting with buckets of boiling tree sap. The smell was horrific, the battlefield was soaked in black smoke and wretched screams.

Tony was shaking like crazy, it wasn’t like target practice in his lab. When he fired, things died, and even if they were the enemy, he was twisted inside with dismay, remorse. He was aiming for flesh and blood and while it was icky flesh and blood, it still gave him pause.

Tony focused on the brilliant fluttering speck that was Bucky. They were going to live through this, that was going to happen. Focusing on that thought, on that promise to himself, and Tony’s hands steadied. His breathing evened out. He could do this. He _would_ do this.

Pierce was down to one head when he sounded the retreat. Covering that one remaining appendage with both arms, the massive creature whirled and thundered away; they might not have killed it, but there were too many wounded, too many dead. There was no fight left in them, no spark, and they just let him go, hoping that its many wounds would take it out, that it would suffer and die somewhere far away.

Bucky swirled one last time in the sky and plummeted down, landing neatly in front of Tony, talons digging into the ruined soil beneath them. “Oh, skies, Tony, you’re alive,” Bucky said, touching him everywhere, checking for wounds, pulling him in close and then patting him down again. Finally, Bucky seemed to realize what he was doing, and he took a hesitant step back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, I…”

Storms, Tony was only going to have one chance before Bucky went back to the flets and forgot about Tony. He threw caution to the wind, slid his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck and drew him in to a fierce kiss.

Tony didn’t know the words, he was never good at talking about _feelings_ , or singing, or any of those things that avians were supposed to be good at. So he’d have to say with a kiss everything he wanted and needed.

Bucky was gasping for air by the time Tony pulled back, but he didn’t thrust Tony away or slap him or any of the things Tony was expecting. He just stood there, forehead resting against Tony’s. Wings arched up and mantled around them, holding them silent and private in a tiny shell of feathers. His eyes were wide and round and shining.

“I thought you didn’t want me to court you,” Bucky said, voice quavering.

“You’re promised to the Captain,” Tony reminded him, heart aching. It was the only kiss he’d get, he knew that, one joy in a moment of triumph could be excused, and--

“What?” Bucky did draw back at that, just enough to search Tony’s face. “What? No, no, Tony… Steve and I promised… it’s stupid, a child’s promise. And he already broke it, but he thought I was dead. We… we weren’t supposed to mate without the other’s approval. And after what you did, even my hidebound and traditional best friend? Will approve of you. And if he doesn’t? I don’t give a single raindrop. All I need is you.”

Tony’s mouth spread in a helpless, happy smile. “Well, and the air.”

“And you,” Bucky said again, emphasizing it. He kissed Tony again, more enthusiastically, and again, until the whole world vanished in a haze of sensation.

 


	8. More Gorgeous Art

 

 

 

_Tony had never seen anything quite so beautiful, and yet achingly tragic, as the way Winter had peeked around his tattered wing to stare at Tony, full of fear and doubt and gratitude all at the same time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New art from [chaosdraws](http://chaosdraws.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is pretty much just smut. Yes, I know birds don't mate this way, but look up bird reproduction and then tell me this isn't sexier :D

Bucky stood on the edge of Tony’s landing flet and stared out at the sky. The dawn was pinking over the horizon, the first day of spring. The winter had been long -- cold and snowy, with storms that raged across the country. The winter had been hard -- the fires of war had burned out, but many seeds and fruit trees had been destroyed. The winter had been a trial -- everyone was angry about Hydra’s attacks. There was guilt and blame to go around, enough to start many an evening’s bickering that lasted until the sun pinked the sky.

Tony’s forges had been quiet and still for months while he struggled to find a new source of trade; while those mines that had belonged to Hydra stood empty for need of workers. In the summer, perhaps, there would be volunteers, there would be those to stake a claim, and find miners to drag the ore from the rock.

In the meanwhile, the fires had been banked. There was not enough material for any new workings, barely enough after they’d smelted down the remains of Bucky’s first two wings.

He stretched, feeling the pull in his shoulder.

A month into autumn, he’d let the Scarlet Witch take away his pain. Suffered for weeks, being unable to fly as his body healed from the invasive procedure. Tony had taken him, a few times, on a steel-framed and bark-coated device he’d called a _kite_. The Witch had taken one look at the kite, however, and claimed it as payment for her services rendered, and Tony had given it to her, so there were more weeks that passed while Bucky was grounded and flightless.

It would have been torture. Except he could look forward to a day when he would be able to fly again.

Tony came up behind him, slid an arm around Bucky’s waist. “Are you okay?”

Bucky nodded, rubbing absently at the muscle that still pulled in his shoulder. “Yeah.”

Tony took a step back, studying him. After several deep breaths, he jerked his chin up and down. Worry in his eyes, for Bucky, for what they were planning, was as evident as the eager anticipation that rose up in Bucky’s stomach.

He was going to fly again.

Bucky tore his gaze off the sky to look at Tony, and once again, he was struck by how beautiful he was. His dark hair hung in his face, not quite concealing his brilliant, brown eyes; they both needed some grooming, Bucky thought, but Tony was still handsome as ever. Bucky was taller than most avians, but that just made Tony fit perfectly in Bucky’s embrace.

The winter had been long, cold, and dark. It had taken Bucky months of waking up in a terror to be able to sleep again, to know he would fly. That he would mate. That he would not be… treated with so-called _mercy._ And in the end, it had been this man, his mate, that had made all of it possible.

Tony linked his hand with Bucky’s. “Are you ready?”

Again, that warm, contented sense of peace, whenever he and Tony touched.

They couldn’t mate, not with winter upon them. Not while Bucky couldn’t fly. But they’d kissed and cuddled and slept together in the same nest -- one of Bucky’s pendant creations, a hodge-podge of colors on the outside, but beautiful and elaborate patterns within.  

Tony had laid himself to rest, gold and red feathers spread underneath him, more brilliant than any Bucky could adorn a nest with. They couldn’t mate, but Tony was inventive, creative, and had shown Bucky ways they could reach pleasure together that involved _mouths_ and _tongues_ and _hands_ , and dear sweet sky, the things that Tony could do to him.

 “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” Bucky said. It wasn’t precisely true, but given that it was the first day of spring, Bucky thought he was entitled to a little hyperbole.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my whole life,” Tony responded, so Bucky guessed hyperbole was the order of the day.

Well, and other things. Bucky couldn’t help a soft sigh of wanting, as Tony squeezed his hand. Shivers ran up Bucky’s spine. Anticipation emanated from the tips of his fingers, through his arms, and down the feathers of his right wing. He arched his back, let his wings spread up and open, welcoming the warmth of the first sun of spring.

Tony gave him another quick squeeze. The pull to fly was stronger now, dragging Bucky skyward. Making him want things he never realized he could have. He reached out, traced one finger over Tony’s perfect face, along his jaw. Felt the rasp of Tony’s beard under his fingertip, the slight roughness before the hair gave way to skin. Tony closed his eyes and leaned into Bucky’s touch. A muscle jumped under Bucky’s finger as Tony’s teeth clenched around a soft, eager moan.

He drew Tony into an embrace, enough that they could both press against each other, feel their morning erections, the wanting, the knowing.

First day of spring.

Mating season.

 _Skies_ , Bucky wanted Tony.

Excitement spun through his limbs until he shook with the strength of it. Tony wanted him, Bucky could feel it in every touch and it made him feel powerful. Desired. Loved.

“You ready to fly?”

“I’m ready for _everything_.”

“Maybe I should check that,” Bucky teased. He mantled his wings around them, and Tony did the same, enclosing them in a halo of feathers and steel.

“Maybe you should,” Tony said. Tony would have made his prep before the sun had even touched the sky; a mating flight had no time for those delicious and subtle things that Tony had been painstakingly introducing Bucky to.

Skyclad -- there would be no clothing this day, between their bodies and the air -- Tony was in Bucky’s arms, and Bucky reached down, drew Tony’s thigh up until he was balanced, storklike, on one foot.

He couldn’t help but kiss; Tony’s mouth was an utter delight. Ran his fingers down Tony’s back, along the curve of his ass, and tested the opening to Tony’s body. Already relaxed and slick and ready, but Bucky wanted to drive them both a little more wild with need, so he checked. Thoroughly. Until Tony was whimpering against him, shivering with every stroke.

“You make me want everything.”

“I’m going to give it all to you,” Bucky said.

“I sure as hell hope so.”

Tony was ready.

The sun was rising.

They separated, then linked hands. Bucky threw his head back and uttered a wild _kiyaar_ , tasting spring in the air.

Tony’s tail feathers rustled invitingly as he spread them as well, giving Bucky room and space to work.

The sunlight touched Bucky’s face. He waited, a moment, then two, and then, Tony was likewise illuminated.

“I love you.”

They launched skyward, wings beating in a frantic race against gravity, practically clawing their way into the air, and then it was sweet, the warm morning air give them a thermal, and Bucky rode it skyward.

Up, and up, and up.

Scattered across the sky were other couples, celebrating the first day of spring. Mating cries rose from every corner of the forest.

Bucky flew up, and up, Tony’s hand in his, their wings in syncopated rhythm as they climbed. Higher, until the air around them grew thin and cold, until their muscles ached from the effort.

They arced in the skyheart’s format, once, twice, kissing at the bottom of the dive, and then climbing again. The third time, Tony gave a quick, eager laugh and darted away. “Catch me,” he taunted, swirling midair and giving Bucky a flash of tailfeathers.

Then the chase was on; twisting and diving and circling each other, the wanting and the needing almost subsumed in the urge to preen and swoop. To impress and tempt. To prove and to strive.

But in the end, Tony slowed just enough that Bucky’s talon caught on one of Tony’s ankles, locking around it like a cuff. Bucky twisted them, mid air. He snatched at Tony’s other ankle, arms going around his mate’s chest, holding himself tight against Tony’s back, pressing the thick ridge of his erection against Tony’s ass.

Tony wriggled, and they started to fall. The squirming, writhing, needy mess of Tony in his arms sent a thrilling shock of pleasure through Bucky’s core. Tony’s tail feathers spread the rest of the way, opening him up to Bucky’s cock.

Heat poured from Tony’s skin. Bucky kissed his neck, bit down on Tony’s shoulder, yanked him closer until they were no longer two bodies falling, but one body, joined in bliss. Bucky pushed, pressed, rocking his hips against his mate’s as gravity pulled them down, slowly spinning in the air as they worked, trying to reach the greatest, best pleasure.

“I don’t know if--” Bucky ground out as they descended. Was he up to it, would the artificial wing hold them aloft at the last, critical moment? Even sometimes fully healthy avians would be dashed to death in the madness of the first mating.

“Put it in me,” Tony begged him, the words practically whipped away by the wind.

One second Bucky was struggling with it, trying to line them up, trying not to notice the earth rushing at them. The next, Tony was snug against him, his slick, heated passage welcoming Bucky’s cock.

Tony whined, panted through the stretch and pain and burn, and Bucky grimaced, wishing he could go slow, wishing that Tony could--

And then Tony clenched around him, squeezing, and it was like nothing Bucky had ever, ever felt before. He couldn’t think, could do nothing but feel, and it was as if they’d stopped falling, that they were hovering there, together. That gravity had thrown them off, and nothing existed but pure, exquisite pleasure.

Tony twisted his head for an awkward, sloppy kiss, and Bucky shifted. He spread his legs, forcing Tony’s open even further, giving himself more room to thrust and move.

Electric streamers of sensation sank into him wherever Tony touched, where they were joined together, coalescing low in his belly. The pull of gravity didn’t lessen, but it made it seem insignificant, a minuscule, meaningless annoyance easily tossed aside.

Bucky rutted, thrusting into Tony’s warm, willing body until Tony was shouting with pleasure, filthy words of need and want pouring from his mouth. He shifted his grip, reached, twisted, and cupped Tony’s dick with one hand. Thick and long and gorgeous, Bucky knew it nearly as well as -- maybe even better than -- his own. He raked his hand along it, eliciting a gasp and a cry and desperate moan of, “more, Bucky, more.”

He wound his fingers through Tony’s hair, yanking his head back. Despite the pressure and the violence of their mating, Bucky kept his kiss gentle and teasing, in defiance of his need to devour his mate, to bite and maul him. Too soft and too light to ever fill the hunger raging inside them both.

“I need you,” Tony cried.

“You have me.”

Bucky thrust, filling Tony with himself, enveloping them both in heat and need and--

Not much time left. The ground rushed at them, eager and hard and cruel.

Bucky tugged at Tony’s cock, letting his hand slide, letting Tony rut against the pressure and friction. “Forever, I will love you, will always love you,” he said in Tony’s ear, and the words were enough.

Tony toppled over the edge, his spill hot and wet against Bucky’s hand.

Bucky screamed as he spread his wings, caught the brutal shock of air, and Tony was crying out, clenching down, and the ground was--

Bucky turned the fall into a graceful, swooping spiral, snatching them away from the claws of death at the last moment and giving them over to one moment of crystalline perfection.

Bucky came, screaming Tony’s name as they reached the top of a much less ambitious climb.

It was all Bucky could do, to land them in a heap on the flet. Tony rolled over, laying on his back, his wings under him like a blanket. “Never moving again,” he moaned.

Bucky agreed with the assessment, spreading his wings out as much as he could, except that he couldn’t really lay on his back the way he wanted to. The press of the metal wing against his skin was still uncomfortable. He didn’t know if he’d ever entirely get used to it. He managed to lay on his belly, the cold floor of the flet under him. He reached, and Tony reached back. Their fingers just barely touched, but it was enough.

“Thirty two feet per second, per second,” Tony muttered. “That makes for a rather… vigorous mating.”

Bucky groaned. “Next time, we’ll go slower,” he promised. “Now that we’re mated.”

“Give me… twenty minutes and a shot of fire cider, and we can explore this whole idea of _slower_ ,” Tony said.

The sun crept further into the sky, drenching the flet in heat and light.

Bucky gave Tony a smile, touching his mouth as sweet as honey. “And at moonrise--”

“Yes, yes, we’re going to the mating celebration, I know,” Tony grouched. “Just when I want to keep you to myself and spend all day in the nest, learning everything about you that makes you scream with pleasure.”

“We have the rest of our lives,” Bucky reminded him.

“Yeah, well, I wanna start _now_.”

Bucky pushed himself up, slow, and offered his mate a hand up. “Let’s get started then, my love.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> Thanks again to Beir for wonderful art, to the other artists who sent me in something -- monobuu, chaosdraws and kamoji...


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